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NABOTU NewsFebruary 2, 2010: Photocopying licenses to benefit local AuthorsBy Charles Batambuze HARARE- Author compensation is a sticky subject that is rarely discussed in joint publisher and author association meetings. The reason is that it is the heart of all publishing businesses and the parties prefer to handle it in confidence. Author compensation especially resulting from the right of reprography including photocopying and digital copying is the only strand of author rights that has enjoyed public attention both locally and internationally. African authors have not been enjoying compensation from photocopying and digital copying because of a lack of enforcement infrastructure that would license all such uses. The situation however is changing as more African countries have introduced collective copyright management in their new copyright legislation and others such as Swaziland are on the way.
It is now left to rights holders including authors/creators and publishers to form collective rights management organizations. There are support initiatives by WIPO, ARIPO and IFRRO to build and improve the skills level of rights administrators and help set up offices and systems. Harare III training on Collective Management of Literary and Artistic Works (with a focus on works of visual arts and reprography) organized jointly by WIPO, ARIPO and IFRRO and hosted at the ARIPO IP Academy in Harare recently is one such initiative. Harare III attracted copyright officers from national copyright offices, Chief Executive Officers of Reproduction Rights Organisations and visual artists from Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Harare III covered such issues including enforcement and management of literary works; legislation, exercise and enforcement of rights and; governance of rights organizations. There were case studies on visual arts, university licensing as well as country reports presented. Other issues covered by the training included book publishing agreement, open access, creative commons and self archiving and how they relate to the work of a Reproduction Rights Organisation (RRO).
In terms of legislation again it was observed that most African countries had adopted voluntary licensing systems which mean the RRO had the duty to persuade users of copyright protected works to take up voluntary licenses. Zimbabwe has a copyright legislation that promotes legal presumption offering full protection to licensed users from prosecution for illegal photocopying by rights holders who might not be members of the RROs. Rights holders who might not be members of the RRO are however entitled to claim remuneration. There are also different models of RROs ranging from state sponsored such as COSOMA- the Copyright Society of Malawi and COSOTA- the Copyright Society of Tanzania. The most dominant RRO model however appears to be private sector led not-for profit organizations with mandates from authors and publishers to manage their reprographic rights.
Reprography and digital copying it is understood plays a crucial role in promoting access to educational content. It is perhaps in recognition of this role that most copyright laws in Africa would permit copying of protected works for education and private use to a certain degree. This means that any copying beyond the level permitted by law therefore falls under the domain that is licensed by collecting societies. The greatest news at Harare III was that countries such as Ghana, Kenya and Malawi had commenced licensing of universities in 2009 to facilitate photocopying of protected works while providing compensation to authors of such works. These joined the ranks of Zimbabwe and others with a longer history of licensing for reprography.
The license fees paid by each university take into account such variables as number of students and average number of copies made in a year. The fees however exclude copies permitted by law, public domain, open access and creative commons materials and other documents not protected by copyright. Ghana, Kenya and Malawi have plans to distribute royalties from the collections to author societies and publisher organizations in the first year. There are also plans for example in Ghana and Malawi to undertake elaborate statistical surveys so that royalty distributions can be title based to benefit individual authors and publishers.
According to CISAC royalty collections for music rights in Africa were on the rise with South Africa and Algeria leading the pack. There was optimism at Harare III born out of the belief that what has happened with music rights could easily be replicated in the reprographic field given adequate preparations. This would definitely be good for author revenues and probably spill over to the entire publishing sector in Africa. Participants recommended that exchange study visits within the region be organized to provide training and learning exposure for reproduction rights organizations and that best practices of reproduction rights management within Africa be documented and shared. At the closing of Harare III, Joyce Banya who represented WIPO thought the training had been great in terms of exchanges of experiences. Harare III was officially closed by Gift Sibanda the Director General of ARIPO. |
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